peanut mochi;

I’m bringing back mochi, for a unique addition to the overwhelmingly “American” holiday of Thanksgiving! If you want to learn more about mochi, check out the original cookie dough ice cream mochi post where I went into more detail. I’ll sum up in case anyone wants to skip to the difference: Ignore the ice cream part of that recipe and instead use homemade roasted peanut butter! In this case “homemade” doesn’t necessarily have to mean made by you. It does mean that Skippy and Peter Pan and jif? Not my ideal, though if that’s all you have on hand, I’ll give you a means to go that route as well!

I won’t belabour the mochi part, that’s pretty much identical to the ice cream mochi post. But the filling you have two options. See both of them on the recipe card for easy access!

Option 1: use natural peanut butter. I really only suggest this if you already have natural peanut butter in your pantry that’s sat for a while. Otherwise you’ve gone out to buy some peanut butter, have to wait a few weeks for it to separate, and probably are investing too much time and energy into these little pillows that aren’t very filling (but are delicious!). In my case, I try to stock up on roasted peanut butter, typically from Ard’s up in Pennsylvania right near Bucknell, where I went to college. And since I only ever pass by Bucknell maybe once or twice a year, that’s not very often. So you’ll imagine that these sit in my pantry for some time, and separation is pretty much standard. You of course don’t have to go to the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania. Although if you do visit Ard’s–get the cornbread! It’s legendary on campus. No, your Whole Foods, or even Trader Joe’s, and I’ll bet most supermarkets nowadays carry natural peanut butter. Note that oil separation can take up to several weeks. If you can’t wait, you can try to use it straight, but it’ll be a bit harder to pull the mochi around it. Plus it’ll be more oily inside.

Option 2: use a store-bought peanut butter and add sugars. This option is a great alternative, however because it has a ton of added sugar, and as I mentioned above I always have separated peanut butter, is not my first choice. But I know not everyone has access to things like that (although if you have access to farmer’s markets you should check it out! Or you can make your own with just straight peanuts!). You can choose chunky or plain, though chunky would be a little closer to natural peanut butter in texture.